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progression

noun: gradual change or development
noun: a series of things
noun: a series with a definite pattern of advance
noun: the act of moving forward toward a goal
noun: a movement forward


LIFE Growth and Development. Orderly or ordered movement or vector.

MUSIC "There are two kinds of progression, melodic or harmonic. Speaking in general terms, the former is a "succession of sounds forming a tune or melody" but the term is also applied to an "imitative succession of melodic phrases" that is to a melodic sequence. Harmonic progression is "the movement of one chord to another" and is diatonic or chromatic. The term is also sometimes used as synonymous with sequence." [A Dictionary of Music]

HARMONIC SERIES (OVERTONE) Also a movement forward and upward in frequency as in the natural progression of partials in the Overtone Series, Scale or Fibonacci Series.


Progression

Ramsay
When the major scale has been generated, with its three chords, the subdominant, tonic, and dominant, by the primary mathematical ratios, it consists of forms and orders which in themselves are adapted to give outgrowth to other forms and orders by the law of duality and other laws. All the elements, orders, combinations, and progressions in music are the products of natural laws. The law of Ratio gives quantities, form, and organic structure. The law of Duality gives symmetry, producing the minor mode in response to the major in all that belongs to it. The laws of Permutations and Combinations give orders and rhythms to the elements. The law of Affinity gives continuity; continuity gives unity; and unity gives the sweetness of harmony. The law of Position gives the notes and chords their specific levities and gravities; and these two tendencies, the one upward and the other downward, constitute the vital principle of music. This is the spiritual constitution of music which the Peter Bell mathematicians have failed to discern: [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 37]

Through the whole system, in the progression of major scales with sharps and minor scales with flats, the new sharp is applied to the middle of the major dominants, and the new flat to the middle of the minor subdominants. In the progression of major scales with flats and minor scales with sharps, the new flat is applied to the root of the major subdominant, and the new sharp to the top of the minor dominant.2 [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 43]

It is in their inverse relations that the major and the minor are equal. Every note, chord, and progression in the one has its reciprocal or corresponding note, chord, and progression in the other. This is the Law of Duality. And this general law of Nature is so deeply rooted in music, that is the numbers which represent the vibrations in the major system be made to represent quantities of string, these quantities will produce the minor system (beginning, of course, with the proper notes and numbers); so that when the quantities are minor the tones are major, and when the quantities are major the tones are minor.1[Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 44]

This subtracting and adding process of Nature by which she so freely handles the notes is the way she gives us the materials of the Chromatic Scale, in which an entirely new series of chords with strikingly different effects, and with exceedingly interesting, subtle, and at the same time easy progressions, is put in possession of the practical musician. This new series of chords forms, in fact, materials for the Chromatic System, which D. C. Ramsay has discovered, and which he has elaborated, as his custom was, exhaustively - his last labor in the interests of music science and art. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 48]

The common chord is a group of notes which come together by generic affinity, much like the chemical combinations of our system of atoms. The common chord is a triplet, and in the progression from one chord to another these triplets have always something in common; by the law of continuity one of the notes of the chord first is also found in chord second; and chord second also finds one of its notes in chord third. This is the way Nature gives them to us [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 48]

In the progression - that is, the going on from one to another - of these triplets in harmonizing the octave scale ascending, Nature goes on normally till we come to the passage from the sixth to the seventh note of the scale, whose two chords have no note in common, and a new step has to be taken to link them together. And here the true way is to follow the method of Nature in the birthplace of chords.1 The root of the subdominant chord, to which the sixth of the octave scale belongs, which then becomes a 4-note chord, and is called the dominant seventh; F, the root of the subdominant F, A, C, is added to G, B, D, the notes of the dominant, which then becomes G, B, D, F; the two chords have now a note in common, and can pass on to the end of the octave scale normally. In going down the octave scale with harmony, the passage from the seventh to the sixth, where this break exists, meets us at the very second step; but following Nature's method again, the top of the dominant goes over to the root of the subdominant, and F, A, C, which has no note in common with G, B, D, becomes D, F, A, C, and is called the subdominant sixth; and continuity being thus established, the harmony then passes on normally to the bottom of the scale, every successive chord being linked to the preceding note by a note in common. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 49]

It has been found impossible in this first edition of his work to publish in extenso the musical elaboration of the Chromatic system through all its forms and progressions; this would make the volume fully twice the size it is. We must be content meanwhile to publish the musical doctrines of Ramsay, with illustrations, and leave the music for a further edition and a future time. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 49]

Some of the elements of the Chromatic System were known 200 years ago. The Diatonic scale, being called the "Natural scale," implied that the chromatic chords were consider to be artificial; but the notes of the chromatic chords, from their PROXIMITY to the notes of the tonic chord, fit to them like hand and glove. Nothing in music is more sweetly natural and pleasingly effective than such resolutions; and hence their extensive use in the hands of the Masters. The chromatic chords have close relations to the whole system of music, making the progressions of its harmonies easy and delectable, and producing effects often enchanting and elevating, as well as often subtle and profound; and while they are ever at hand at the call of the Composer, they are ever in loyal obedience to the laws of their own structure and system. When a diatonic chord precedes another diatonic chord belonging to the same scale, it has one note moving in semitonic progression;1 but when a chromatic chord precedes a diatonic chord, it may have three semitonic progressions.2 The primary chromatic chord resolves into 8 of the 24 diatonic tonic chords, with 3 semitonic progressions. These identical notes of the chromatic chord, with only some changes of names, resolve into another 8 of the 24 tonic chords, with 2 semitonic progressions and one note in common; and when they resolve into the third and last 8 of the 24 tonic chords, they move with one semitonic progression and 2 notes in common. So to the chromatic chord there are no foreign keys.3 And as it is with the first chromatic chord, so with the other two. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 51]

the major, the root of the major chord is the middle of the relative minor, and the middle of the major chord is the top of the relative minor; and as the note which has a semitonic progression downward to the top of the major has a semitonic progression upward to the root of the relative minor, so the same three notes which move in semitonic progression to the top, root, and middle of the major chord, likewise move by the semitonic progression to the root, top, and middle of the relative minor. In both cases the progressions are upward to the roots and downward to the tops; but in the major the movement is downward to the middle, while in the minor it is upward. So each one of these three of the four notes of the chromatic chord has two various movements.1 [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 53]

A WHOLE SECRET STORE
of new chords and progressions now for the first time reduced to scientific order in
[Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 54]


The chord-scales may be either major or minor, or may be found in a sweetly mingled condition; a piece may be wholly major or wholly minor, but not wholly chromatic. Chromatic chords do not usually succeed each other, but come into diatonic compositions for the purpose of producing certain effects peculiar to them, or by solving difficulties which may arise in composition. They are used as musical condiments to spice or sweeten a passage; but nobody makes pudding all of spice or sugar. The structure, character, and progression of the various chord-scales will be found so amply set forth in several parts of this work that it is not necessary to enlarge further in this place. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 69]


Hughes
In the progression of harmonies these are always closely linked into each other. If any key-note is taken as central, its root will be the fifth note of its harmony below, and it becomes in its turn the root of the fifth note above. If we add the silent notes, the root of the central note is the eighth below, and becomes the root of the eighth above. To explain the lower series of the notes sounding the six tones from within themselves, the only plan appeared to be to write the tones as notes in musical clef. By reference to Chapter V., we see that the lowest series still sound their tones, and lead the ear to the higher series of a key-note, and the six notes of its harmony, as they follow each other in trinities. [Harmonies of Tones and Colours, Diagram III - The Major Keynotes Developing by Sevens, page 25a]

The keys of C and G meeting are coloured, and show the beautiful results of colours arising from gradual progression when meeting by fifths. Each key-note and its trinities have been traced as complete in itself, and all knit into each other, the seven of each rising a tone and developing seven times through seven octaves, the keys mingled. The twelve scales have been traced, developing seven times through seven octaves, all knit into each other and into the key-notes and their trinities. The chords have also been traced, each complete in itself, and all knit into each other and into the key-notes, trinities, and scales. And lastly, one series of the twelve keys, no longer mingled, but modulating into each other, have been traced, closely linked into each other by fifths through seven octaves, three keys always meeting. Mark the number of notes thus linked together, and endeavour to imagine this number of tones meeting from the various notes. [Harmonies of Tones and Colours, The Twelve Scales Meeting by Fifths, page 31a]

Let us first examine the meeting of the key-notes and their trinities in musical clef; the isolated fourths rising through the progression of the twelve now meet, seven and seven pairing. We must notice how closely they are linked into each other, the three highest notes of the lower seven being the three lowest of the higher seven an octave higher, and the four lowest becoming the four highest an octave higher; we descend by following the keys as written in musical clef upwards. [Harmonies of Tones and Colours, Diagram XIV - The Modulating Gamut of the Twelve Minor Keys by Fifths1, page 39]

See Also


1.20 - Evolution and Devolution of Frequency
12.18 - Multiple Octave Progression
12.38 - Orbital revolution
14.15 - Movement Caused by Spirit
15.15 - Progressive Dissociation
15.15.05 - Progressive Association
arithmetic progression
arithmetical progression
Dissolution
Evolution
Genesis of the Scale
Geometrical Progression
harmonic progression
Harmonic
inverse progression
Life
Motion
Movement
musical progression
Overtone Series
Progress
progression of adjacencies
progression of keys
Progression
Progressive
Progressive Evolution
Progressive Science
Ramsay - PLATE II - The Genesis
Ramsay - Three Chromatic Chords
semitonic progression
triple progression

Created by Dale Pond. Last Modification: Tuesday October 24, 2023 06:39:54 MDT by Dale Pond.